That deadly smog …. a Clean Air Act…. and the story today …. on the wireless

I grew up with smog.

It was just the background to living in London in the 1940ss and 50s.

Of course, all our cities and towns were prone to the stuff if atmospheric and weather conditions trapped the smoke from countless domestic fireplaces and the tall chimneys of factories and power stations leaving it to settle around the streets and houses.

At the time we just called it fog and, in my case, I enjoyed the way it blotted out buildings and other urban features, deadened sound and got us out of school early.

But smog brought it with it a potential death sentence for some and doubtless didn’t do the health of any of us any favours.

Nor for that matter did it a century and more of burning coal improve the state of buildings which were became caked in a layer of black soot which incidentally also settled on the trees and was visible on your clothes after climbing them.

All of this was to change in 1956 with the coming of the Clean Air Act which regulated what could be burnt, as witnessed by a cautionary note in 1964 from the survey of a house that we were about to buy which warned mum and dad that  “this house is likely to be included in a Smokless Zone under the Clean Air Act of 1956 and approved fireplaces must be fitted into the open fireplaces in the lower rooms by October next.”*

Now over the years there have been some fascinating accounts of those years and today I was drawn to another on BBC Radio 4’s “Every Breath You Take”, from the series “Rare Earth”which the sleeve notes remarked, “It was known as the Great Smog. In 1952, London was blanketed for five days in a thick toxic layer of soot and sulphur dioxide, leading to thousands of premature deaths. 

The outcome was the Clean Air Act of 1956. 

In this programme, Helen Czerski and Tom Heap ask what's changed in the seventy years which have passed since then. How clean is the air we now breathe?

Panel: Dr Gary Fuller, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Imperial College in London, Dr Kathy Davies, Environment Historian, Northumbria University, Beth Gardiner, Journalist and author,

Producer: Emma Campbell

Assistant Producers: Toby Field and Georgia Graham"*

Pictures; a foggy not smoggy day across the Rec, Beech Road, Chorlton, 2024

*Surveyors Report, February 1964

**Every Breath You Take, Rare Earth, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm

A golden childhood growing up in Well Hall in the 1960's

Lost in the woods, 1977

Now Eltham was a pretty good place to grow up in the 1960s especially when you had come from Peckham.

It was partly the opportunity to wander over large areas of open and wooded land where you could play, walk and just let your imagination out for the day.

That said I was 14 when we arrived in Well Hall which made some of the “play thing” a little old hat.

But that freedom to set off up into the woods on a warm summer’s morning with no real idea of where you would end up was magic.

Of course the first few times you took off up there it really was discovering new places, and then later it was equally special as you shared it with a girlfriend.

What started out at Well Hall could by degree take you off to Welling via the castle and offer up some stunning views.

And when you tired of trees, solitude and aimless meanderings there was always the Palace and the pleasure of walking along King John’s Walk towards Mottingham.

King John's Walk, towards Mottingham, 1977

Looking back all that didn’t last long, partly I guess because the summers were all too short and soon there were widening horizons and counter attractions.

Never underestimate just how a sixteen your old starting out a fresh at Crown Woods with a whole new set of friends can be drawn away from the simple pleasures of a walk in the woods.

But they never quite went away, after all when you live on Well Hall Road the woods dominated the view from the back window and on those storming summer nights when the sky was lit up with the jagged flashes of lightening it was hard not to be drawn up there.

Not that anyone with any sense would venture there in such a storm.

A much better attraction was the Welcome from where you could sit out the storm with a pint although all too often I was less lucky.  Those storms seemed to pick me out as I was walking back from a Friday night in Woolwich, and later still falling out of the King’s Arms in the High Street.

And now the woods and Well Hall are a long way from where I live and separated by a gulf of time but they still exert a pull and bring back a pretty perfect childhood.

Pictures; the woods and King Jon's Walk, 1977 from the collection of Jean Gammons

Sunlight House “a modern building with the best of old standards maintained"

Sunlight House, © 2013 Peter Topping

Earlier this month I was on Quay Street with Sunlight House which when it was completed in 1932 was seen as a building which combined “modern conceptions of architecture in its sleekness and in the vertical lines, yet [retained] the best of the old standards of design.”*

It was designed and built by Joseph Sunlight as the headquarters for his business and was a lavish and modern building as befitted a man who claimed to have created more than one million pounds worth of property in the  first fourteen years as an independent architect.

Not that that he had it all his own way.

Just a few years after the building was opened his application for a license to serve alcohol was turned down.

And in 1949 he failed to get planning permission to “build a 35 storey extension to Sunlight House and a new 14-storey building between Peter Street and Jackson’s Row [because] the premises would dominate existing and proposed civic buildings, exceed the appropriate density of the area, injure the amenities of near-by buildings, and prejudice possible development plans.”**

So, even the mighty, wealthy and influential do not always get their way.

On Quay Street in 1911

Nor was his Parliamentary career a long one.  He was elected as the Liberal MP for Shrewsbury in the 1923 General Election only to lose the following year in the subsequent General Election.***

It is one of those interesting little asides of history that had he retained his seat he might well have seen his Brick Bill for the making of bigger bricks pass into law.

It was a private members bill which had survived its reading by one vote but fell by the wayside with the dissolution of Parliament in 1924.
All of which is a long way from Sunlight House and from the properties it replaced.

Now the Manchester Guardian had reported in 1931 that before Sunlight House “was erected the site contained some of Manchester’s worst slums.”

Twenty years earlier these had consisted of a mix of shops and lodging houses and judging from photographs may well have had their time.

*Sunlight House, the Manchester Guardian, May 12, 1931

And some of those who lived on Quay Street

**No extension to Sunlight House, the Manchester Guardian, July 2, 1949

***December 6 1923, October 29, 1924

Maps & pictures, detail of Quay Street from the 1888-93 OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/,  and street directory from Slater’s Manchester, Salford and Suburban Directory, 1911

Painting; Sunlight House, © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

“I make no rash promises …. promises never fulfilled and perhaps never meant to be” ……

Yesterday I wrote about the election campaign of Frank Beverley who stood as the candidate for the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Labour Party in the local elections of 1937.

At the time I had yet to uncover his election address containing the outline of what he stood for.

Happily today I have that address in front of me and it makes interesting reading, partly because of its honesty but also because the points he made 85 years ago have a resonance with the problems faced by many during this “Crisis in the cost of living” and the response of some in National Government.

So here it is, along with the endorsement by the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Labour Party.

He lost, and the story of that election can be read by following the link.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Election leaflet, courtesy of Cllr Mathew Benham 

*Mr. Frank Beverley ……. Chorlton-cum-Hardy .... 1937, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2023/01/mr-frank-beverley-chorlton-cum-hardy.html

Memories of an ancient accident … one canal …. and that steep incline … Stoney Brew

Nothing quite prepares you for the way Jutland Street just drops away in front of your eyes.

Jutland Street before the drop, 2025

It is the road that runs from Ducie Street down to Store Street and it crosses the Ashton Canal. 

I first came across it in the summer of 1975 in the company of Norman Parry who had grown up close to the canal and still remembered all his childhood haunts.

Looking up Jutland Street, 1966

It had been a conversation one dinner hour about old Manchester that prompted Norman to offer a guided tour of the back streets around Piccadilly Railway Station and the basin of the Aston Canal.

And having told me he had learnt to swim in the canal he mischievously brought me to the summit of Jutland Street and with an impish smile told me to walk ahead of him and was pleased with my stunned reaction.

The road does just fall away, and it is a marvel that in the age of the horse and cart it was not prohibited to travel down the incline.

But I guess carters did take the chance, but with a heavy load and primitive brakes it has always struck me as an accident about to happen.

And looking down, 2025

And some time in the 1930s witnessed by Norman that is what happened.  A fully loaded wagon plummeted down the road smashing into a stone pillar outside what had been a timber yard.  The carter escaped but the horse was crushed.

All of which makes the popular name for the road which was “Stoney Brew” quite apt, but I sometimes wonder whether the present residents in their fine modern apartments on either side of Jutland Street are aware of the nick name, and I certainly don’t think they have come across the accident.

Looking at that incline it makes me think that ascending the road with a full load must have been equally dangerous.

The canal and Junction/Jutland Street 1849

And yet waggons must have done the trip, because the Ashton Canal ran in to a busy basin which back in 1849 was surrounded by the warehouses of various canal companies as well as the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway and the North Staffordshire Railway, assorted coal wharfs and stone yards along with the Store Street Iron Works.

The canal had been completed in 1797 and my Priestly tells me “The Town of Manchester derives considerable advantage by the facility with which this canal and branches supply it with stone and coal at an easy rate”.*

And that for now is it.

Location; Jutland Street, formerly Junction Street

Pictures; Jutland Street from Store Street, 1966, : m02382, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Jutland Street, 2025, courtesy of Google Maps and the area in 1849, .from the OS for Manchester & Salford, 1842-49, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways Throughout The United Kingdom, John Priestly, 1830

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 16 ........... a revolution on wash day

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now this was Dad's welcoming present to 294 when we moved in in 1964.

I say Dad's but the reality will be that it will have been mum who insisted on this piece of cutting edge technology.

And with that "keyplate" which "automatically selects the right water temperature, the right washing action, the right number of rinses and the right spin-drying time for what ever wash you are doing" we could really feel the future had arrived.

And on top of all that here was a front loading machine which was already plumbed in and needed no endless filling of water buckets to put into the machine.

I could also comment on the rather sexist headline but won't.

Location; Well Hall

Picture; advert for the Hoover Keymatic, The Observer Magazine January 30 1966 from the collection of Andrew Simpson







*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, 

Mrs. Mary Francis Kelsall of Chorlton ……… politician ……. textile worker …… and mother

I like the way that a story I wrote just a few days ago can come back with a series of twists.*

Mary Frances Kelsall, on her 90th birthday, 1979

In this case it began with a story of a Mr. Brightman who stood for election to the City Council in the November of 1945 for the Chorlton-cum-Hardy ward. ** 

Election leaflet, Chorlton -cum-Hardy Labour Party, 1945

His running mate was a Mrs. Kellsall and I promised to return when I knew more about her.

And out of the blue Trevor James emailed me with, “I know of Mrs. Kelsall. I did quite a bit of family history work for a lady in Wisconsin – on a quid pro quo basis, as she did lots for me in the USA. 

As our research progressed, parallels grew. It ended up with finding that my mother had travelled daily into town with a distant relative of [the Wisconsin lady] – the said Mrs. Kelsall. This was immediately post-WW2. 

The Kelsall’s lived on the Barlow Hall estate, on Floyd Avenue.”***

And that was enough to spur me on, fulfil the promise, and fin her I did. 

Doreen, Frances & Mary Francis Kelsall, 1928

She was Mary Frances, born in 1889, married in 1913, with two children, and died in 1985.

In 1921 the family were at 10 Bland Street Moss Side, and she worked as a shirt machinist for Central Shirt Co, at 19 East Street, which employed 739 people.

The firm is listed in the 1911 directory in a building it shared with various companies, including a merchant, embroider hat manufacturer shipping merchants and Milling engineers.  The large building was at the end of East Street as it ran into Bale Street and stood opposite the famous Tommy Ducks pub.

By 1939 she was living at 18 Floyd Avenue off Barlow Moor Road.

And in 1945 according to the minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party she was one of six members who were invited to attend a selection meeting “for the final choice of candidates”. ****

Looking through the record of the Party for the 1940s I can at present find only one other reference to her, which was in June 1945 when she is listed as a sub agent in the forthcoming General Election.

At that particular meeting the group had discussed the “broad principles of the campaign”, along with “general arrangements for meetings, committee rooms, clerical work, literature and canvassing”.*****

Mr. Brightman had been appointed agent and the sub agents were Mr. Luly for Withington, Mr. Ball for Chorlton and Mrs. Kelsall for East Didsbury.All of which appeared in an account of Mrs. Kellar on Friday, but what was missing was a photograph and I began the piece lamenting that “I doubt I will ever turn up a picture of Mary Frances Kelsall”.

Manchester Labour and Election News, October, 1945

And now like a corporation bus I have two both of which turned up at the same time, for which I have Mary L Price of Wisconsin to that thank.

She is related to Mrs. Kelsall and kindly offered up the three images.

So finally, I can look on her, while as yet there is only Labour Party election leaflet featuring her name and policies, I am confident more will out.

And on a personal note I was the election agent for the Chorlton Labour Party from 1980 till 1987 and again during the early 1990s. As such I oversaw the historic first victory of a Labour candidate in Chorlton in 1986 and was one of the sub agents in the Manchester Withington Parliamentary election which saw Keith Bradley elected as the first Labour MP.

Chorlton Labour Party Election material, 1980

I don't know if Mrs Kelsall was still living in the area or if she retained her political beliefs but I like to think it makes a link between me and her.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures: Mary Frances Kelsall aged 90, 1979, and in 1928 with her two children, courtesy of Mary L Price, and Election material from 1945, courtesy of M G Wittard, and Chorlton Labour Party Election material, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Mrs. Mary Frances Kelsall ……… an election …. and the search for her story, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/11/mrs-mary-frances-kelsall-election-and.html

**Mr. Brightman ….. Chorlton-cum-Hardy……… and the election of 1945, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/11/mr-brightman-chorlton-cum-hardy-and.html

***Trevor James, November 21st 2022

****Minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party September 13th, 1945

*****Minutes of the Chorlton Labour Party November 6th, 1945